Matchmaking Is Easier With Science! And A Hulk
by DriannaHarper
Summary: Darcy and Bucky are figuring things out. And setting up their friends, because Steve is SUCH a doofus. (Part 7 of the Couch Series)


"So…," Darcy drags out. It's been a few weeks since Bucky got back. They're still limited to cuddling on the couch, watching Netflix. She's willing to give Barnes a shot at redemption here, but she's still pretty pissed at him. And Steve.

But not at the rest of her friends. Which is why she's convinced she has to put the two love struck idiots out of their misery.

Bucky looks up at her from where he's currently laid out in her lap while they watch her flat screen. Hey, she may not be ready to totally forgive the guy, but his hair is pretty awesome to play with.

"So?"

"What are we going to do about this?" she asks.

"About…? Is this another way of wanting to petition for more Firefly? Cause, it's gone, babydoll, and it's not coming back."

"Shut your stupid face, there's always hope. No, I'm talking about 'Captain Oblivious' and his friend, 'Para Trooper Soulful McPining-Idiot?"

One of his eyebrow's goes up. It should NOT be that attractive. "Is that all on us now? I thought moving into the tower would fix that."

"Nope," she snorts. "They're freaking WORSE. We gotta be the big kids and fix this for them. It's going to take WAY more than anything we thought up before. Nothing I've tried so far has worked. Even when I was mad at you and Steve, I was still trying to set them up."

"You hit them in the face with icing."

"That was an accident."

"…I've seen your aim, and I call bullshit on that."

Turns out, Natasha's been running a betting pool. Not that it's that surprising. Darcy gets her fair ten percent, and then gets the rest of the team to help her plot.

Jarvis books the restaurant. Pepper promises to keep the communal floors free. Bruce ropes Jane and Tony into a Science! spree, so they're in the labs for the foreseeable future. Thor's keeping watch on Jane for her. Barton is their tag along body guard.

Darcy got Sam to agree to come claiming her still frosty relations with her boys.

Bucky got Steve to agree to come as a chaperone, since Darcy was being hesitant. As if.

The couple got ready in her suite. As she fixes his tie, he catches her arm.

He leans towards her. "If this goes okay… can it be a real date? I don't think we've done one of those."

"Like hell, jerk. You wanna go on a date with me, you ask me out and all that. You don't get to piggy back someone else's date. That's messed up."

"Wanna go on a real date with me, Darce?" Bucky asks.

Her hand is still on his tie, and he's still too near, and he smells too good, for her to be entirely rational. But, she did promise to give him the chance to fix things. "Okay. One condition, though."

"Name it."

"Cook me something."

"I… what?" he stumbles. She's too close, and not close enough, and her words aren't making sense.

"Steve said you could cook, back in the '40's. So cook me something, Barnes. We cooked for you all the time, at the apartment. Either bring stuff here, or I'll come to yours. But make me something. Something that isn't take out."

He shudders. "Darce, if I have you in our apartment-" She cuts him off.

"Or you could come to mine, cook here. I'd have YOU in MY apartment. Then I could HAVE you in my apartment."

"Darce-"

"What are you objecting to here? Don't know where I put my pots and pans?" she murmurs into his ear. "Don't think I have enough oregano?"

He has her sitting on the vanity table in a moment, skirt hiked up. "Fuck-"

"No time for it now, but I think you'll be coming up with ideas throughout dinner."

"Damnit, Darcy-"

"You deserve so much worse than the last three weeks of blue balls, Sargent. Let's get our idiots through their feels, and we'll figure out the rest." He huffs in her ear, and buries his face in her neck.

She holds him just as tightly as he's holding her to his chest. It's a solid minute before he lets her down.

She watches him slip on his leather jacket over his good clothes. Steven's taking the bike. She in turn dons a pea coat to wear for when she leaves with Sam in one of the Avengers cars.

"Good luck, soldier!" she says emphatically, while holding her hand out to shake.

He takes it, turns her wrist upwards, and kisses her pulse. "Likewise."

"Darce…the backup plan? Where we start a fight so we can storm out and leave the moron twins alone? Can… can we try…"

She brings her free hand to his cheek. "Hey. If we have to do it, we both know it's not real. We're coming back here and watching movies, and hoping those ass clowns figure things out."

His other hand comes up to hold hers in place. "Okay. Okay, Miss Lewis. Let's go smack some heads together!"

Sam holds her hand the entire ride to the restaurant. The fact that he's holding it as tightly as he is bolsters her belief that she's doing the right thing. He wouldn't be this damned nervous otherwise. Any last doubts fled when Jarvis sent over an audio file of Steve freaking out about the 'not date'.

The small Italian restaurant they'd chosen had been looked over by Shield agents, Science! peeps, and several Avengers in the previous week. Not only was it 'clean', it was clean, had really good food, and really tiny booths. Darcy and Bucky were sat together in a booth to force the 'date' aspect on them. Sam and Steve didn't seem to realize that meant the same for them on the other side.

They ordered appetizers and drinks, and it was REALLY AWKWARD. In a way it shouldn't have been. Seriously. Darcy and Bucky were together again. She'd hit both of the other guys in the head with desserts. The boys had been out on jobs together. They were super stupid into each other. What the hell?

Darcy has her head down and has been texting Jane about how annoying the whole thing was. Her left hand is wrapped around Bucky's flesh one under the table while she listens to stilted conversation and what appears to be strategy for taking down Hydra from the idiots across from her. Her texting gets a little more cranky after she downs half a glass of wine, makes sure not to cuddle too close to her boyfriend, and waits for her bruchetta.

It's not until ten minutes in that she realizes this date is going to fail. She also figures out that the rest of the team are just as sneaky as Jay. She hadn't been told (since Jane had money resting on the two getting together this week), and didn't know that Bruce had been in Jane's lab with her instead of his. Or that Jane had been ranting about the dorks to him. She got a panicked message from Jane, however, saying that the Hulk had gotten tired of them being idiots, had taken off through the side of the tower, and was on his way towards them.

She straightens up really damned fast for someone that had been pretending to be moping. All three men snap to attention.

"Shit, okay guys, this was meant to be a double date, because you're both into each other and are being super stupid about it. I was going to ease you into this, but the Hulk is on his way to make sure you get the point, so can you just make out right now, so he doesn't smash you?"

Sam is kind of gaping as he turns to Steve, but Steve grabs him by the back of the neck and hauls him into a really, really, not Cap approved kiss. It's pretty much as dirty as it can get. By the time the Hulk peers through the window, all he sees is the shocked waitress, the back of Cap's head with Falcon's hand buried in his hair, and Darcy curled up on Bucky's lap, giving him a thumbs up.

He glares at Bucky for a minute, and launches off back towards the tower.

"I don't think he's forgiven you, man," Darcy says as she cuddles back into Bucky's chest.

"Have you?"

"Nope."

She feels him straighten, startled. "But… I'm trying-"

"And you're doing all you can. But you left, man. I can't just forgive and forget that. I'm doing my best. But you're going to have to make me believe it. That's going to take time."

She turns and traces her hands down his face. "I know what you're fighting. But it takes a toll on me too, and I have to recover from it."

Her hands skim down his shirt to rest over his heart. "I love you, James. But it isn't an easy thing. You know that. My damned CAT knows that."

"I didn't mean to step on-"

"And the fact that I let you step on her twice is proof. I love your stupid ass. But loving you is hard. It's always going to be hard. That's what the price is for loving a super hero. And I knew that a long, very long, time ago."

"Hey, Stevie?" he calls.

It takes Steve a minute to tear himself away from Sam. "Yeah, Buck?"

"Wanna pay up and call it a night?"

"Great idea."

They both stood, awkwardly, and deposited their dates on the bench seats, before wandering off to pay the bill.

"You stole my line, woman."

"Whatever, nerd. I helped you score the super hero you got a thing for. I think it's worth it."

Darcy watches Sam trace Steve's outline with his gaze. "Yeah, it is."

"For the record, shovel speech. Right now. Hurt him, you're fucking dead. Strike and reverse it. He hurts you, he's in a shallow grave. Are we good?"

"Nope."

All of the sudden, she's pulled up and engulfed in a huge hug that's very familiar. "Our boys are all sorts of stupid, you know?"

She nods.

"They need both of us. They're going to do shit we both won't react well to. We got to have each other's backs too, okay?"

Darcy toggles the control switch in her ear. "Hey Jarvis? Can you add Sam to EP4?"

Sam looks at her quizzically. "You know Jarvis and I are, like, totally besties?" Sam nods. "I have a control in my ear pretty much twenty four seven, and he keeps me on alert. I know where everyone is, and what's going on at all times. Part of the job. Level 4 means you can get any info on them at all times up to level 4."

"What's level 5?"

"Sorry, honey. Requires a physical, and questions about your prom you don't want to answer. Four means you get all Avengers access. Three means you might find the level Tony's on without pants. After forty eight hours of being in the workshop, he seems to think pants are optional. Two is accounting. One is the lobby."

"So what level are you?"

"I don't think I'm legally allowed to answer that. I don't want Agent iPod Thief giving me his grumpy face."

Turning, Sam sees Steve and Bucky arguing in the doorway. Finally, Bucky shoves Steve towards them. "He really had no idea, did he?"

"Nope, sorry Sam. Four years, and not a freaking clue. Hence why we stepped in. It was getting painful. Like, kittens were crying and puppies were whimpering, man."

Sam meets Steve halfway, and both Darcy and Bucky watch the desperate make-out session going on, trying not to roll their eyes. They also both had their phones' filming. For Nat. And Jane. And Pepper. And the rest of the female population, cause DAMN.

Eventually, Darcy puts both pinkies in her mouth and lets out a sharp whistle. "Okay, gentleman, back home it is. Steve, hands off Sam's butt. Sam, hands off Steven's junk. Keep that private, guys."

She and Bucky take the car home, pausing outside to watch Steve ride off with Sam clinging to his back.

"We did good, Barnes."

"That we did. Hey Darce?"

"Mmm?"

"We never actually got around to eating. Want me to make you dinner?"

Slowly she turns, sweeps her gaze up and down his body, and smirks at him.

"Thought you'd never ask. We should probably go to mine, though. I think you may want to avoid your apartment for a while, unless you wanna see WAY more of your roommate than you should."

He swallows with some difficulty. "Still planning to have me in your apartment?"

"You'll just have to wait and see."


End file.
